Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Fetiales

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

FETIA'LES (φετιάλεις and φητιάλεις). The members of a college of heralds at Rome to whom was entrusted the duty of seeking redress of grievances from hostile states, carrying declarations of war, and assisting in the conclusion of treaties of peace. They carried with them a wand (caduceus), as the emblem of amity, and a spear, as the token of war, which they hurled across the hostile frontier when hostilities were decided on. (Gell. x. 27.) The annexed figure (Fetiales/1.1), from an engraved gem, is supposed to represent a Fetialis about to depart upon a hostile mission from the columna bellica, on which the figure of Minerva is seen in the act of discharging a spear, as above described.

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  Fetiales/1.1